


faith you need to borrow

by maybetwice



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Espionage, Future Fic, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, War, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 15:50:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13034430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetwice/pseuds/maybetwice
Summary: The world burns in war again and Diana answers the call of an old friend.





	faith you need to borrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shrift](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shrift/gifts).



_December 1940_

The sky is too heavily shrouded by damp clouds and thick, black smoke to give way to the thin, midwinter sun, although the delicate golden watch on her wrist indicates that it is still early afternoon. Still, Diana makes herself check it three times to confirm the hour before adjusting her gloves and ringing the bell of a once lovely home on Grosvenor Street that has sustained only minor damage in the past three months. She only needs wait a few, short moments before the door opens in the hand of a Royal Marine, a young boy no older than twenty-two, who looks sincerely surprised to see her pristine form towering above him. 

“Ma’am,” says the boy, before snapping to and stepping to the side. “You must be here for Madam Candy.” 

“Etta?” Diana echoes with a charming laugh. “Yes, I have an appointment.” 

“Let me confirm with her–”

“Oh, Dick, don’t tease her,” a familiar voice chirps from down the hall and, although Etta is ten years older than when Diana saw her last in Baltimore, in America, she looks remarkably well preserved for her age. Etta pulls her reading glasses from her eyes and lets them fall down her front on their shimmering chain, pulling Diana down into a hug that belies her age and stature. “This is Diana Prince. We’re very old friends.”

A quick inspection of the house as Etta leads her down the hall reveals that what must have once been a stately home for the wealthy has since been converted to offices brimming with desks and phones, heaps of paper scattered between transmitters and dozens of people working feverishly. An enormous map is pinned to the wall of the ballroom, where a young woman shades entire neighborhoods of London in a rainbow of colors while her companion calls out addresses. 

Damage reports, Diana realizes, pressing her lips together. London is still burning from the night before. The ticket seller in Southampton accepted her money, but only after Diana stood at her full height and insisted that she was perfectly aware of the danger in London.

The room at the end of the hall is set up with an enormous desk and heavy bookcases, but otherwise resembles a rather traditional parlor, with soft couches and a table set with porcelain cups and a matching pot, a covered tray, and a stack of files Etta had apparently been reviewing. 

“There’s coffee,” Etta explains brightly, settling onto one of the couches with a deeply satisfied smile in Diana’s direction. She waves to the other couch insistently until Diana loosens the belt of her coat, hanging it by the window and sitting. Etta goes on as she pours for both of them, “No sugar or milk for it, but there are these little fruitcakes, and my sister sent fudge from the States.”

“This is very generous,” Diana answers kindly, accepting the cup with a deep, appreciative inhale. There had been no coffee on Themyscira, but she’s come to rather like the bitter taste over the past two decades. She nods toward her shoulder bag, bulging with a paper-wrapped package she carried back before the snows overtook the mountains. “I brought some things for you, too.” 

“Now who’s being generous?” Etta examines a piece of fudge thoughtfully before biting into it with obvious delight. “How have things been?” 

“I planned to ask you the same.” Diana cradles her cup in her hands, deftly avoiding the question. The house is warmer than the street, but the people working here evidently have become used to keeping the fires too low to banish the damp chill. They are among the lucky ones. “Better for me than for you, I think.”

“Oh, the bombardment?” Etta looks around the room and shrugs. “I volunteered. Some of my old friends were happy to have me, although they have been trying to convince me that we should move our operation to the country.” 

“Americans, all of you?” 

“Not at all. There are too many folks back home who want to appease the Germans to avoid war – or, worse, _agree_ with them.” Etta pauses, as if she is in the habit of censoring her sincere thoughts, then lets herself frown deeply. “I don’t know if America will join this time. If even the Blitz cannot convince them, all the people dying…” 

The world has not been peaceful these past twenty two years. Still, that there are always humans ready to stand against evil… well, the world is not entirely terrible, she supposes. Diana may be restless with grief and horror, but she still has hope, and there may still be a place for her to join them. “They can be made to understand,” she says confidently. 

“Oh, I needed your optimism,” Etta says wistfully, reaching out to squeeze Diana’s free hand with evident fondness. “It’s enough to fire up this old woman again.”

“You’re hardly elderly, Etta.” 

“Pish. Simple enough for you to say: I resemble my grammy more by the day and you haven’t aged a bit.” Etta puts aside her coffee and restores her glasses to her nose. “My countrymen’s general cowardice aside, there are enough of us who remember the great war. This is mostly a British and American operation here at Grosvenor Street. Although, we had rather a lot of Frenchmen join us in June, but most of them stayed behind.” 

“Aha,” says Diana, smiling a little into her coffee. Outside, in the gray courtyard, the light is dimmer than before. The time for pleasantries is past. To work. “La Résistance. And so you wrote me?” It would be no sorry thing for her to go where she went with Steve before, to liberate towns alongside her friends in France, people who were children then and are now mothers of their own children now.

“Not exactly,” answers Etta promptly, unembarrassed to get on with her reasons for writing Diana. She shuffles through the files until she finds one near the bottom of the stack and hands it over to Diana. “The resistance in France is barely establishing their networks. We have some people on the ground there, but your particular talents would go to waste for now.”

“Not to mention that you think I am too hot-headed.” Diana finishes her coffee with a smile, thinking of something Steve once said to her irritably, after she’d exploded at a few generals. 

“Oh, but I _like_ that you’re a hothead.” Etta laughs as Diana flips open the file and examines the map with some surprise. 

“Denmark?”

At Diana’s silent nod, Etta swings her entire body over to sit next to Diana and waves the tip of her pen over the eastern isle of the country. “We have a team of operatives stranded in Roskilde after completing their mission in early September. They’ve managed to maintain cover this long, but if we can’t evacuate them before the weather turns too bad, then they’ll be there until spring.”

“And you don’t know what things might be like by spring,” Diana finishes for her, flipping ahead into the file, studying the headshots of bright, young people not at all unlike Steve and Etta when she met them. “A rescue mission?”

Etta squeezes her hands. “Just the fit for you,” she says with a flourish of pride.

Diana closes the file with finality, as though she were not decided to help Etta however she could long before her telegram arrived. “When do I leave?”


End file.
